But Time has dealt harshly with Jericho. Fickle Fortune has played her false. She has passed through all the vicissitudes of fortune. Iron-fingered Fate has torn off her royal robes, and she sits to-day clad in sackcloth and ashes. “Gray lizards, those heirs of ruin, of sepulchres, and desolation, glide in and out among the rocks, or lie still and sun themselves. Where prosperity has reigned and fallen; where glory has flamed and gone out; where beauty has dwelt and passed away; where gladness was, and sorrow is; where the pomp of life has been, and silence and death brood in high places,—there this reptile makes his home and mocks at human vanity. His coat is the color of ashes, and ashes are the symbol of hopes that have perished; of aspirations that have come to naught; of loves that are buried. If he could speak he would say, ‘Build temples: I will lord it in their ruins; build palaces: I will inhabit them; erect empires: I will inherit them; bury your beautiful: I will watch the worms at their work; and you who stand here and moralize over me: I will crawl over your corpse at last.’” The locations of ancient and of modern Jericho are not exactly the same, though not far apart. The present village is inhabited by about 600 Arabs who are huddled together in less than seventy-five houses. Houses, did I say? They are unworthy of the name. They are wretched huts, constructed, for the most part, of rough, unhewn, undressed stone. As these stones are put together without the use of mortar, the walls are broad at the bottom, and get narrower and a little narrower towards the top, which is about six feet from the ground. In each of the four corners of this rock pen, is driven a stake which is usually about eight feet high, or some two feet higher than the top of the wall. Long, straight poles reach from one stake to another, then other poles are placed like lattice work all across the top of the pen. A thick layer of grass and weeds and cane tops having been placed on these cross poles, dirt, or earth, is then piled up to a depth of from eighteen to twenty-four inches. Thus the roof is formed. The floor is more simple in its construction, as it is composed of the native earth or bare rock. Doors are simply gaps in the wall. Windows and chimneys are unknown, and indeed unnecessary—air-holes are abundant, and the smoke can escape anywhere. The rude houses are separated from each other, and the whole village is surrounded, by a low, rough hedge of dry, thorny bushes. This is a fair representation of the present architecture of Jericho. And the inhabitants are as lazy and trifling, as filthy and ignorant, as the huts they live in would naturally suggest. The children dress in sunshine, while the parents hide their nakedness with rags and loose wraps of cloth.